


The Bruises Have Always Been There, He’s Just Learnt to Hide Them

by wizard_of_ozzy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst to Fluff, Angsty Draco Malfoy, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Astronomy Tower, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26736340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizard_of_ozzy/pseuds/wizard_of_ozzy
Summary: It’s the night before Lucius Malfoy’s trial and Draco just has one thing to do.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 111





	The Bruises Have Always Been There, He’s Just Learnt to Hide Them

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is the first Drarry thing i’ve ever really written, hope you enjoy!

As Draco ascended the spiral stairs that led up to the astronomy tower, he misjudged his step and walked into the side of a marble pillar to his right. “Yet another bruise to add to my growing collection.” He mumbled under his breath; despite no one being around to hear him.

Draco had been taught his whole life to not make any unnecessary sound. Footsteps, breathing and any type of movement were all supposed to be silent. No one was to be aware of his presence at the manor unless he was called upon, lest he somehow mess things up for his father and, by extension, the Malfoy name. That was just one of the small things he had been taught as a child that, once he arrived at Hogwarts and saw how everyone else was, kept coming back to him. How many things had he grown up with that were expected from him that weren’t the norm? Was his childhood really as bad as it seemed to be, compared to those of his classmates?

Tonight he ignored what his parents had trained him to do, he heard his footsteps echo around him and fall into his head each step he took. He heard the rustling of his clothes as he moved his arms to propel him further, and the ragged breaths of exhaustion leaving his lips. He desperately needed a break to catch his breath and rest for a few seconds but he wouldn’t allow it; if Draco stopped, he knew he wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t get to where he needed to, would just turn back. It had to be tonight. But maybe he was being loud for a reason, he might actually want someone to hear him.

There was no room in his mind for such thoughts, not after he had come up with the plan, if he did it tonight, it would seem like the events of the impending day were the cause, not the stupid little things that stuck, gradually wearing him down. If anything, tomorrow would be a relief; it was his father’s trial, people would expect him to be emotionally vulnerable now and they’d come to their own conclusion based upon it. As his thoughts continued to wander over to his father’s trial, he couldn’t help but question what Lucius would do or say if he knew what his son was about to do. He’d most likely sneer at Draco icily and tut at him before saying, “I never thought you were worthy of the family you were born into, your name and everything it has given you. You disgrace me and I will disown you if you try to do this, just think about what people will say if word gets out that you did this. You would make Malfoys look weak.” Draco shuddered at the mere thought of his father’s cruel, cold tone; only now realising how much of a negative influence he’d had on him.

Draco’s mind then wandered to the Golden Boy himself and thought that if Potter was in Draco’s position, he’s sure that whatever family he lived with would do all that they could to stop him. They’d remind him how much they loved him and get him help and say how much he was worth and that he can always come to them if he needed anything, that they were always there for him no matter what. If only Draco had had the same love and kindness towards him as Harry no doubt had.

As if on cue, he rounded the corner and found himself met with emerald green eyes and a very startled gasp.

{.X.}

Harry was just taking off his invisibility cloak, feeling the fresh air hit the skin of his half exposed arms as he looked forward and saw the unmistakable glint of Draco Malfoy’s steely grey eyes falling onto him. A gasp escaped his lips before he could register it. Why was Malfoy up at the top of the astronomy tower at 2:30 in the morning?

His mind was racing with thoughts and theories as to why Malfoy was up here, so much so that he didn’t realise the fact that he hadn’t stopped staring at Malfoy. Harry was only taken out of his stupor when he heard Draco mutter to himself under his breath, “Well that’s thrown a spanner in the works.”  
“Hm?” Harry spoke, not meaning to.  
“Don’t bother Potter, I’m not here to cause any conflict, I just had something to do.”  
“Oh, I didn't think you were here to do anything to me, you just caught me by surprise. If I said something, no I didn’t. Anyway, what did you have to do in the astronomy tower... at half two... in the morning?”  
“It doesn’t matter, nothing important but it had to be tonight.” Draco answered, unsure as to why he was speaking honestly, if a little cryptic.  
“Why tonight?.” Harry asked, unable to hold back his curiosity  
“Because tonight makes sense, if I do it at any other time, people will think I’m weak.”  
Getting anxious now, Harry replied, “Do you mind telling me what ‘It’ is?”  
“Erm… oh, Merlin why not? It’s not as if you of all people would care,” Draco laughed humorlessly, “I plan on- um, on-” he couldn’t finish the sentence, it was too painful to admit what he was about to do; even to his arch-enemy. Although, come to think of it, Draco hadn’t thought of Harry as an arch-enemy for over a year now and in actuality, he didn’t think he ever had. Not really anyway.

Harry didn’t need Draco to finish his sentence in order to know what the pointy blonde was about to say. He wasn’t the most observant person in the world, not by a long shot but it didn’t take a genius to pick up on what was going through Malfoy’s mind, all he had to do was read the situation; Draco was up at the astronomy tower in the middle of the night, he was expecting to be alone and it needed to be done tonight, the night before Lucius Malfoy’s trial.

Without thinking, Harry shucked the rest of his cloak off his shoulder, stepped forward and pulled the Slytherin into his arms, holding tight. He felt Draco still for a few seconds before melting into the embrace and letting his weight be held up by Harry.

{.X.}

Draco wasn’t expecting Harry to put his arms around him but once he’d done it, Draco found himself burying is head in the crook of the other boy’s neck, a gut-wrenching sob tearing through him as Harry stood there and let his emotions pour out, whispering comforting things in his ears, “You’re gonna be okay.”  
“I’m here.”  
“Don’t worry, you’re safe.”  
“I’m here.”  
“Let it all out.”  
“I’m here.”

Draco removed himself from Harry’s embrace with a wet sniff and found himself unable to meet Harry’s eyes. “Hey.” he heard Harry say softly to get his attention; looking up, Draco replied, barely above a whisper in a raspy tone, throat dry from his crying, “Hello.”  
“Are you okay?” Harry said cautiously  
“Yes, I’m feeling delightful, thank you for asking.” He replied without a trace of malice in his voice.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
“Not particularly.”  
“That’s okay.” Harry said as he grasped Draco’s wrist between his fingers and pulled him down to the dusty stone floor to sit next to him. Draco complied and let himself be led to the ground by The Boy Who Lived - twice.

The two boys sat in a comfortable silence before Harry broke it by saying, “Please don’t do it.”  
“Do what?” Draco replied, confused for a second before remembering his intentions that night, “...Oh, that.”  
“Yeah, That.”  
“Why shouldn’t I though? It’s not like anyone would miss me, I’m just a snarky pureblood that no one likes; and for good reason. I mean, I was a bully, Merlin I treated Granger like utter shite and Weasley too as well as you, Longbottom, Lovegood, Weaslette, the list goes on.”  
“You did and I’m not going to deny that because some things you said bloody hurt but now that everyone knows you didn’t really mean it, that you were just saying those things to protect yourself and that the mark was forced upon you, I think most people have pretty much forgiven you. You haven’t done anything mean or disrespectful since the war and everyone did stuff they weren’t proud of in order to survive; you just had to do that from an earlier age.”  
“Yeah.” Draco replied, unable to say anything else and surprised at how quickly Harry had cottoned on. He felt understood for the first time in years. He felt like Harry knew this had been a long time coming, that Draco was just waiting for a valid excuse, the words repeating themselves in his head in Harry’s soft voice, ‘you just had to do that from an earlier age.’.

As Draco mulled over what the raven-haired boy had said, his words started to resonate as he thought back and realised that almost nobody had done so much as look stonily at Draco since he’d been back at Hogwarts. Maybe some of what Harry said had been true, of course that didn’t change how he’d been feeling in the first place but it definitely shed some light on him. He continued to sit and think until he was reminded of Potter’s presence by a rather violent sneeze that came from the left of him.

One look at Harry’s face made him realise that, while the hurt was still there, he no longer felt obligated to do it tonight. Instead, he would go to his father’s trial, talk to his mother some and ask if she knew if her Mind Healer had any space for him or knew someone that did but in the meantime, “I don’t want to be alone, please stay with me.” he spoke in a rush, scared that the sound of movement after Harry’s sneeze was him leaving.  
“I’m not, don’t worry, I was just getting a tissue although we do need to move at some point, it’s..” he cast a tempus charm and read the numbers aloud, “Oh wow, it’s half three and we need to sleep.”  
“We do but I still don’t want to be alone, I don’t think I can be, not tonight.”  
“That’s okay, we can go to either Gryffindor or Slytherin, whichever you prefer.” Harry replied, seemingly unfazed at the notion of sleeping in the same bed as Draco.  
“Slytherin.” Draco said instantaneously, “it’s a longer walk and I still need a bit of time to clear my head before going to sleep.”  
“That’s completely fine with me. Do you need help getting up?” He groaned as he stood, ankles clicking from the sudden movement.  
“Erm, yeah, that’d- that’d be good thanks.” Draco spoke as Harry took his hand and pulled him to his feet, not letting go as he started to pull them towards the stone steps, instead squeezing Draco’s hand and settling once more into the comfortable silence.

{.X.}

Harry resolved to keep hold of Draco’s hand until they reached the Slytherin portrait because he knew how much better human contact could make a bad situation feel. That and it just felt right, their hands fit perfectly together; Draco’s hand was cooler than his but not so much that it was cold to the touch, it was just the right temperature and took from the heat of his hand nicely.

As the portrait let them through, into the Slytherin common room, Harry was taking in the new surroundings and didn’t notice something peculiar on one of the leather green sofas just outside his line of vision until he heard Draco grumbling and followed his gaze to see Pansy Parkinson’s dead-weighted body sprawled over the antique furniture. She had very clearly passed out, drunk. Thankfully, someone had disposed of the empty bottles that had left slightly darkened rings on the coffee table in front of the sofa and replaced them with a hangover potion. Harry looked on in surprise, trying to remind himself that the stigma of Slytherins being heartless is completely untrue.

In Slytherin, there were many winding corridors to go down in order to reach the dorms, each hallway was filled with mirrors, paintings and various tapestries, placed in such a way to bring a homely feel to an otherwise quite grim walk to the dorms.

Once they had reached the dorms, Harry looked around nervously, seeing if there was anybody awake in there. When he saw that everyone else in the room either had the curtains of their bed drawn or were splayed out on their mattress, Harry let out a small sigh of relief before realising that he hadn’t anything to sleep in or any of his belongings, other than his wand and cloak. He’d just have to either borrow something of Draco’s or sleep in his boxers.

Without sparing a second thought, he cleared his throat and decided to ask the blonde, “Sorry if this is a pain but would I be able to borrow something to sleep in? I didn’t think I’d be coming here tonight, obviously, and I’m still just in my clothes.”  
“Oh, yeah of course,” Draco replied, rummaging through his clothes trying to find something spare for Harry to wear, “Here you are, I only have T-shirts, I hope that’s okay.”  
“Yep, a T-shirt is perfectly fine, thank you.” Harry replied, sincerely  
“No problem,” He said, handing Harry the crinkled T-shirt, “I have a favour to ask you…”  
“Oh?”  
“Do you think you’d be able to come with me to my father’s trial tomorrow, it’s just that I was going to go with Pansy but obviously she’s out of the question now as she’ll have the hangover of a lifetime tomorrow and I would ask Blaise but he’s seeing his mum tomorrow and I don’t know who else would be able to go that I’d be comfortable having there and obviously it’s completely up to you but I really don’t want to be alone.” Draco spoke in a rush, leaving himself breathless once he had finished speaking.  
“I’d have to let Ron and Hermione know where I was going in the morning but I’d happily go with you to your father’s trial, it’s no problem. We should probably sleep now, how early do we have to be up?”  
“We need to get to the Ministry for eight and into Hogsmeade to Apparate at half seven so maybe half six?”  
“Oh wonderful, a full three hours of sleep!” Harry replied, voice dripping in sarcasm  
“Yeah, sorry about that but thank you for coming, really I don’t know if I’d still be here if you hadn’t.”  
“You’d do it for me.” Harry said softly

{.X.}

The two boys got into the blanketed king-sized bed without a word once they’d got changed. After a few seconds of laying down, Draco’s mind started to run a mile a minute and he tried to choke back a sob but instead made a cat-like gurgling noise that came up the back of his throat. He rolled over to his side, forgetting that Harry was there and was once again enveloped in strong, muscular arms; tighter this time, with more meaning.

Their legs slotted together under the covers as Draco continued to get hugged by Harry and was pulled closer. Harry’s hand was now tangled in his hair and Harry placed a kiss on top of Draco’s head, so light he almost didn’t feel it, leaning into the warmth of the other boys arms, he felt the tears that had been threatening to fall from his eyes subside and started to drift off to sleep.

Draco opened his eyes and found his face nestled in a mess of black curls and dark skin. That was the happiest he had felt in a long time, he felt warm and tingly inside when Harry squeezed him more as he was stirring himself. 

When Harry awoke, he stretched and then retracted his legs, entwining them more; shifting slightly, Harry repositioned himself and settled in a more comfortable place before lifting his head and placing another feather-light kiss atop Draco’s soft, fair hair. “You okay?” Harry asked, his voice scratchy after having slept  
“Not really,” Draco mumbled into Harry’s hair, “but I’ll be fine with you there.” he continued.  
“I’m glad, I’ll stay with you for as long as you want me to, whatever you need, just say it and I’ll do it.”  
“Thank you. Can we just stay here a bit longer? We don’t need to be in Hogsmeade for another hour and it only takes ten minutes to get there.”  
“Of course we can.” Harry spoke quietly, burying his face in the crook of Draco’s neck and taking in the blonde’s scent of citrus fruit and pine wood.

They laid in each other’s arms for a further eight minutes before they heard movement coming from one of the other beds in the dorm, to the left of them. “Blaise,” Draco breathed in Harry’s ear, “he wakes up at this time every day, showers for seven minutes, gets dressed in three and brushes his teeth. We have twelve minutes to get dressed and start making our way to the Great Hall for some breakfast.”  
“That’s fine, oh shit. I don’t have anything to wear to court!”  
“You don’t have any shirts up in Gryffindor? Slacks? Loafers? Oh maybe a jacket too.”  
“I have a shirt, it’s too small but I can just use engorgio. As for the rest, nothing except loafers.”  
“That’s fine I have spares that you can borrow.”  
“Oh great, sorry for not having anything though.” he said, despite being delightfully happy at the thought of wearing Draco’s clothing once more.  
“What colour and tone is the shirt and the loafers?”  
“Erm, light blue and black?”  
“Great, I’ve got a light grey jacket and black slacks, now you just need to run all the way to Gryffindor, I’ll give you the slacks now because I doubt you’ll be back here within, ten minutes now so your jacket and I will be waiting at the Ravenclaw table.”  
“Okay, see you there then- wait? Ravenclaw?”  
“Ravenclaw. Now go!” Draco half-shouted, getting slightly stressed as they were losing time  
“Right, sorry.” Harry said, pulling Draco into a brief embrace before making a hasty exit.

{.X.}

It took Harry seven minutes to get up the Gryffindor tower and into his dorm room. He tried to get dressed quickly and quietly so’s not to waste time or wake up anyone else. He failed. The sounds of thumping coming from Harry in the centre of the room woke up Ron and when he opened his curtains, he stared dumbly at his best friend’s fumbling figure as he wrestled with a blue shirt. “You alright there, mate?” he yawned, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Hearing the familiar sound of Ron’s voice startled him and when he tried to put his foot down onto the ground again to stabilise himself, he stubbed his toe on the foot of his bed and fell to the floor in an ungraceful heap.  
“Argh, yeah Ron, I’m wonderful cheers for asking.”  
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, I was only asking! Anyway, what are you doing and why are you holding your old shirt?”  
“I’m holding it because I just Engorgio-ed it so I could wear it today because I’ll be accompanying Draco to his dad’s trial, don’t ask. It’s a long story and kind of personal. Oh also, I almost definitely have a thing for him, no I will not be accepting questions.” He said as he finished buttoning the shirt from his heap on the ground, threw on the slacks, stepped into the loafers and made his second hasty exit of the day, leaving Ron gobsmacked in the dorm.

Harry walked back down to the Great Hall and saw Draco over at the end of the Ravenclaw table, alone and made his way to him, where he was buttering some toast, the grey jacket draped on the chair to his right. Sitting down, Harry nodded at Draco, before settling into a comfortable silence as they ate their food.

{.X.}

Once they had finished eating their breakfast, Harry and Draco left the Great Hall, went through the Entrance Hall and descended the stone steps that led out of the castle. As the two boys left the Hogwarts grounds and made their way into Hogsmeade and Apparated, they had their fingers interlocked, only letting go of each other when they stepped out of the lift in the ministry. Their hands found their way back to one another as they trudged slowly, unwillingly down the dark, damp hallway beneath the Ministry of Magic, shivering as they passed an open window.

As they took their seats in the spectators stand, overlooking courtroom 4, Harry took Draco's hand once more when he saw his face contort in pain as he laid eyes on his father and said, almost inaudibly into his ear, "I'm here." Draco was going to be okay.


End file.
